Monday, July 2, 2012

Author: Evan ButlerSince our last Skylanders's article, two new variants have already been released. They are churning these things out like there is no tomorrow and reaping the benefits in the process. As previously mentioned, these rare variants are purely cosmetic. They function exactly the same in game as a normal version of the same character. They serve no in-game function but are simply for collectors and hardcore players of the title.
From a business standpoint, this helps consolidate your fanbase by allowing them to become more attached and devoted to the series as they invest more and more time, money, and effort to “Catch ‘em All”.Right now, Skylanders collecting is still hot but it isn’t making the news anymore. Fansites are hopping but a lot of the major media is looking not at the collecting angle but more at the upcoming sequel, Skylanders Giants. Without this media attention, the collecting for the original figurines and is waning. This is to be expected. The prices are leveling off (at around where I estimated in my last article) and everything is settling. After this we can most likely expect a spike in prices after Giants is released but can we ever expect it to reach the all-time high they have reached now?What we can expect is some market fatigue. This means that the buying end of the market will become saturated. The die-hard collectors will all have what they wanted and they just won’t be flying off the shelves anymore but I may be wrong since Activision has allowed figurines from the first Skylanders game to be used in the sequel. This is a smart move and will allow a more gradual fall-off in sales instead of everyone jumping ship and buying solely Giants figurines but just how long can Activision keep this up? As long as the figurines sell, Activision will continue to make them. Market discuss aside, there are two new variants out there. One is extremely rare, the other you can find in about 8,500 different locations around the globe. Collectors, eat your hearts out.

This was given away exclusively at Activision’s booth at the 2012 E3 Convention in Los Angeles, California. Reportedly, there were only 2,000 of these made making it rather desirable. What makes it visually stunning is the alternate painting of the figurine, it is chromed. That is so cool! This continues the trend of shying away from variants that are easy to fake. Chroming is a complicated process and this will deter pirates from trying to make a cheap buck by attempting to imitate this. I still would only buy it if it was left in the box and intact, tough. Buyer Beware, as always. On eBay, you can find plenty of these but the price hasn’t really settled. Some sell for a lot, others can go for cheap under the radar. There is no level price, so if you do find one, try to buy within the bracket that follows.PRICE: $50-$250

So, after writing all these articles on collecting these figurines, I was at the local Wal-mart buying some candy and I saw these. I had never heard of this variant before and I knew that rare variants are worth several hundreds of dollars. I freaked out and thought I had won the lottery. On closer inspection...

They had like 50 of them in stock. I knew then that they were not rare but simply exclusive to Wal-mart. This variant is extremely common but acts as a hook to bring people into the collecting phenomenon. They see this and wonder if there are other colors out there. They check eBay and if they really like the series and have a few thousand dollars to waste, they start collecting.PRICE: $8.96+tax at your Wal-martWho knows what variant they will come out with next, when they do I’ll be sure to let you know.Keep collecting!